Do You Believe In Hell?

I don’t. Never have. Don’t know why.

Okay, I do know why. Hell never made sense to me: if God is so loving and wonderful then why subject people to some kind of eternal torture? Especially when we’re so good at doing that to ourselves, amiright?

That doesn’t mean I don’t believe evil doesn’t exist, or don’t believe in the concept of “sin” (a loaded word, I know ... more on that another time). But the concept of a Hieronymous Bosch-style afterlife of damnation and grotesque punishment just seems stupid.

Hell does not exist in the Old Testament, it seems to be a relatively recent concoction; the Hebrew world “shaol” referred to the Jersualem garbage dump, while “satan” is more accurately translated as “opposer” or “accuser.” That seems to fit my idea of the world. We have ying and yang, darkness and light, morning and evening ... everything has its opposite. This is not the same as Western Christianity’s ideas of “heaven” and “hell,” which seem to have their origin in Medieval art and literature (and that I believe was informed by the Black Plague). So, thank you Dante Alighieri for saddling us with these crackpot ideas.

It’s interesting that in modern America people have become so attached to these cultural notions of “heaven” and “hell” -- ideas which do not exist anywhere in the Bible -- that something like this can happen:

Pastor loses job after questioning hell

DURHAM, N.C. - When Chad Holtz lost his old belief in hell, he also lost his job.

The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls.

Two days later, Holtz was told complaints from church members prompted his dismissal from Marrow's Chapel in Henderson.

That’s almost funny except it’s not, it’s very sad. Congregations are supposed to listen to what their pastors have to say on theologoical matters, aren’t they? Isn’t that the point? If you've already made up your mind then why even bother with a pastor? Just go on in your comfortable little universe where you're never challenged to look at the world in a different way.

But of course we all know that has its limits: every pastor with a passion for social justice knows you can only challenge your congregation so much. Preaching “love the sinner, hate the sin” is fine; preaching homosexuality isn’t a sin at all but just how some people are born is asking for trouble. People don’t want to be pushed out of their comfort zones, which is why it’s the rare preacher who has the stomach to challenge the status quo. I mean c’mon, Jesus was that kind of preacher and look what happened to him.

Anyway, I’m getting off on a rabbit trail here but I thought I’d ask people their thoughts on this. What's your concept of hell? Is it like that old Twilight Zone episode, where the Hell's Angel is stuck for eternity with a group of senior citizens looking at pictures of their trip to the Grand Canyon? Is it the hell on earth we create for ourselves?

Is There Intelligent Life In Outer Space?

Last week's question about what happens when we die sparked some interesting dialogue so I thought I'd ask this question: is there intelligent life in outer space?

In the after death conversation I mentioned a near-death experience someone had in which they were shown a future life as an alien on a space colony, which blew my mind.

When I was in 6th or 7th grade, I was a huge Erich von Däniken fan. I read all of the "Chariots of the Gods" books, and while I'm not sure I believed all of what was in them, it certainly piqued my imagination. By high school I had graduated on to Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan--in fact, after college I applied for a job at Sagan's The Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Got an interview, too! Kinda makes you wonder the turns one’s life takes, doesn't it?

Anyway, if that hasn't proved my SETI bonafides, I once dated a guy who said he had an alien encounter when he was a kid. He didn't like to talk about it, in fact seemed somewhat traumatized by it. I have a feeling anal probes were involved.

So I am certainly open to the idea of intelligent life in outer space. I’m aware that earth’s solar system is in a rather remote corner of a rather remote galaxy. We’re sort of in the boondocks in galactic terms, and when you think of how vast the universe is -- “BILL-yons and BILL-yons” of suns and planets orbiting those suns -- it seems rather arrogant to think that Earth would be the only place where “intelligent” life exists (I don’t happen to think we’re all that intelligent, seeing as how we’re poisoning ourselves, willingly and knowingly.)

Then again, the fact that life exists on Earth at all is such a fluke, such a bizarre set of circumstances that created just the right conditions that allowed just the right carbon-based life-form to evolve. Of course, there can be other kinds of life forms -- my favorite New Yorker cartoon shows a crashed space ship and an alien creature crawling through the desert gasping, “ammonia .... ammonia ...” Hah.

Anyway, if there is an intelligent life form out there, one which we assume has developed advanced technology and is able to slip the surly bonds of whatever planet they call home, why haven’t they made themselves known to us in a big way? Are we really that remote? Or maybe they’re just too wrapped up in their own stuff to worry about looking beyond their world. Maybe curiosity is an Earth thing, a human thing.

We do always assume there is an “intelligent” life form with an advanced culture and technology out there. But what if there’s not? What if there are just bacteria and amoeba and maybe insect-like creatures?

What if we’re the smartest kids in class? There’s a scary thought.

What Happens When We Die

Setting aside politics for the moment, I’ve been having some interesting discussions with a few folks about that eternal human question: what happens when we die?

It’s one of those things I’ve always wondered about, even as a kid, which might have made me a weird kid but I suppose everyone has thought about this at some point. When I was a little I used to think you entered into some kind of void, “like when you go to sleep at night but don’t have any dreams,” I remember explaining to a friend when I was around 10. “You just wake up the next day and time has passed. Like that.”

Yes, I was a weird kid.

The thing is, I have never believed in heaven or hell. To be more precise: I’ve never believed in hell. Hell makes no sense to me, because I can’t imagine the world works that way. I can’t imagine a hell any worse than the one we humans create for ourselves right here, right now. I don’t believe the universe punishes you for being bad. Frankly, my dear, I don’t think the universe gives a damn.

I think the whole punitive thing is an entirely human construct, and while I do believe in the concept of Karma, that is an entirely different thing from a system of retribution and reward. I believe what you give out comes back, that nothing is created or destroyed it simply changes form, that the cosmos operates as a universal balancing act. There is no room for punishment for violating some Western society’s rules, which tend to operate in black and white when there are so many different shades of gray.

What this all means is that if I don’t believe in hell, I can’t believe in heaven, either. Because you can’t have one without the other.

This is completely at odds with my chosen theology, but the Presbyterians, God love ‘em, are pretty tolerant of the oddballs in their midst. I’ve had many pastoral conversations where I’ve been assured that my esoteric musings are in keeping with centuries of theological discourse.

Not so my evangelical Christian friends. The thing about the evangelicals and the fundamentalists is they’re always trying to rebrand the absolute worst deal as some kind of awesome new thing. No sex until you’re married! No alcohol! No gays! Um, no thanks! Sex, booze and gays are what make a party, people!

My evangelical friends tell me with absolute assurance that after we die we all Bible-believing Christians (oops) go to some heaven kind of place and worship Jesus for eternity. That’s it. They are dead serious about this, and they will tell you this like it’s the most awesome deal you could ever get.

I ask you: does that not sound like the most gawd-awful, boring way to spend eternity? Don’t you think Jesus would get bored with that deal, too? Once again, you folks have the clunkiest junker on the lot, which you are trying to convince me is a Ferrari. I ain’t buying.

I know quite a lot of people who believe in reincarnation and this makes a lot of sense. Recycling is built into every natural system, so it would be logical that our souls would recycle in addition to our corporal bodies. Ever the joker, Mr. Beale told me he thought he’d probably come back as a slug in a saucer of beer.

But I don’t like this idea at all. I see how we are destroying the planet and quite frankly I do not want to come back to this mess. Who wants to see the Gulf of Mexico in 50 years? Not me.

Talking about this with some folks I heard a story about a very unusual near death experience. This person had nearly drowned and was taken out of his body to a place in outer space. He was shown his next life there, where he’d have some kind of important role in establishing a space colony. However, he was told he needed to return to earth and continue to learn some things in his current lifetime that would help him in that future mission.

Now, that just really blows my mind. That indicates that all this stuff is already planned out, which begs the question: by whom? Also, outer space, people? Really? Could we be reincarnated as aliens? I guess if you think your dog could be reincarnated as a human, and a human could be reincarnated as a beetle, then surely we could be reincarnated as life forms elsewhere. It just never occurred to me to expand my questioning beyond Planet Earth.

Anyway, the more I think about this, the more I like the idea of an Endless Void.

I'm not planning on going anywhere any time soon. But I am curious what other folks think about this.